Karl Hyde: Edgeland – review

Saturday 20 April 2013 19.05 EDT
First published on Saturday 20 April 2013 19.05 EDT

The uncertain zone at the margins of London, where city ends and countryside begins, is the preoccupation of this new album from Karl Hyde, on a break from his dancefloor-pumping, Olympic ceremony-scoring day job with Underworld. Like many thoughtful wanderers before him (notably Patrick Keiller and Iain Sinclair), Hyde, a Romford resident, finds poetry in hinterlands dotted with skeletal cranes, disused factories and rundown cafes. However, the album (co-produced with composer Leo Abrahams, and accompanied by a film called The Outer Edges) is strangely underpowered – the music sounds watered down – and Hyde's stream-of-consciousness lyrics are more rambling than visionary.